July 2009

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski told the Senate Commerce Committee that the agency is opening a inquiry into children's television rules. "I believe an examination of the Children's Television Act in light of the current marketplace and technologies merits the attention of both this Committee and the Commission," he said, "and I look forward to working closely with the Committee as it proceeds on its work in this area." And look for the FCC to cast its view wider than broadcasting to include cable, satellite, video games, mobile video, and the Internet. But while Chairman Genachowski said that the wealth of new digital media outlets justified re-opening the act, he also said that broadcasting remains an "essential medium" and that it was still "uniquely accessible to all Americans," a phrase that echoes one of the Supreme Court's justification for broadcast content regulation, though in that case the court specifically cited access to kids. Broadcasters, by contrast, have recently ramped up their argument that given all those media choices Genachowski cited, the uniqueness of that access is called into question, if not mooted.

Sen Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) says "folks have enough problems with credibility right now without fake news being aired." She's infuriated by ads that mimic newscasts, with actors or even news anchors from a TV station being paid "to pretend like it is a newscast, with a ticker running underneath." Sen McCaskill said it was "unconscionable," and added that she was particularly concerned about stimulus money ads masquerading as news. Sen McCaskill said she was "amazed" that journalists had not complained more about the ads, though she said it may be because they were too focused on trying to keep their jobs. Citing FCC action two years ago against Comcast, McCaskill conceded the FCC had taken some "limited action" already, but said she would contact the commission for an update given her continuing concerns. But she also wanted to know what the Federal Trade Commission could do about it, asking why there wasn't a way for the FTC to say: "You can't do that. You can't pretend like you are broadcasting news when it is a paid advertisement."

Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra believes a "huge, tectonic shift" is needed for government agencies to accept a new era of open government, which has become a major mission of the Obama administration. The bottom line, he told a high-tech conference on Tuesday, is that "at the end of the day we're stewards of taxpayer dollars and we need to be open and transparent around using that money." The latest project to launch in that space was in June when he unveiled a Web-based IT dashboard that sheds light on the performance of IT projects across government. As a result of that initiative, the Veterans Affairs Department said it was temporarily halting 45 projects that were found to be behind schedule or over budget.

Federal agencies are facing a severe shortage of computer specialists, even as a growing wave of coordinated cyberattacks against the government poses potential national security risks, according to a report drafted by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Partnership for Public Service. The study describes a fragmented federal cyber force, where no one is in charge of overall planning and government agencies are "on their own and sometimes working at cross purposes or in competition with one another." The report, scheduled to be released Wednesday, arrives in the wake of a series of cyberattacks this month that shut down some U.S. and South Korean government and financial Web sites. The recruiting and retention of cyber workers is hampered by a cumbersome hiring process, the failure to devise government-wide certification standards, insufficient training and salaries, and a lack of an overall strategy for recruiting and retaining cyber workers.